Border City Booms with Deepening China-Russia Economic Ties

Data showed that in the first 10 months this year, 325 trains entered China through the Manzhouli port, up 45 percent year-on-year, while 762 trains left Manzhouli, up 9 percent.

Local authorities have been renovating the century-old Zabaikalsk railway station to cope with surging freight volume.

Wang Xiwei, a businessman from Inner Mongolia, said at the railway station that Russian products, such as candies, beer, chocolate, flour and cooking oil, sell well in China, and his company's imports of Russian food have doubled this year.

A taxi driver said he has been to Manzhouli and he liked it. "I hope that one day Zabaikalsk will be as prosperous as Manzhouli," he said.